Frank grabbed me under my still outstretched left arm, right at the armpit, and hoisted me up. “Neal, get that to Joe! Now!” My legs started moving, all on their own, and I found myself running towards the McDonalds. Chris was dead. For what? Those arrows went through a bullet proof vest, his body, and out the bullet proof vest on the other side. This thought was interrupted by me bumping into a ladder that lead up to the roof of the fast food joint. I put my arms to the rungs, and soon enough I was up top. Brett was there with his arm pointing over to his right. My mouth couldn’t form words, so I just turned to the direction he indicated. My legs somehow still worked well enough to carry me to Joe. I don’t remember specifically how I got there. I remember my feet moving, the ladder, Brett, and then Joe, but only in snippets. I looked down at my hands and saw the token in my outstretched left one. How did it get there? I climbed the ladder. Did I put it in my pocket, and pull it back out just now? I offered it to Joe.

  “Neal. Breathe. We need you with us.” He took the token from my hand. “I don’t know how to get this thing to work, or what it does.”

  “I don’t know.” It was all I could get out. “I’m gonna sit down now.” I sat down and looked numbly over to the barricade I was just behind a moment before. It was chaotic. The wolf was latched onto the thigh of one of the guys down there, and was whipping his body back and forth like some sort of rag doll. This turned the poor highway patrolmen into a melee weapon with added range. He whipped him back and forth into the closest victims tossing them back and onto their asses. It seemed to be blocking the shot of a few more guys as many of them weren’t firing. This wolf was smart. It had clearly done this tactic before.

  Then from out of the far left hand side of my vision Brittney had her bow up and started firing arrows into flank and back leg on her side. One arrow and then a second looked to have struck deep. The wolf tossed its victim into the closest patrolmen and turned to Brittney. She was toast.     “Hey, you ugly dog shit. Come at me!” Those were Frank’s words. He pounded the large, heavy duty riot shield into the ground. This must be shield taunt, as sure enough, the massive canine turned to him and snarled. It took one last look at Brittney and then charged Frank. Frank, to his credit, set the shield into the ground defensively with the battle ready axe in the other hand. The wolf, charged straight with no attempt at subterfuge. His jaws opened wide and tried to bite down at frank over the shield. Frank dropped the axe and braced the shield to keep it between him and wolf.

  Then a shot rang out next to me. It pierced the wolf’s snout. There was no resistance, unlike the orcs from earlier. I did not know if there was an exit wound, but wolf yelped. Then Brett’s lightning bullet blasted right into it’s left eye. More gunfire rang out, this time from the rifles that we had given to the highway patrol earlier. Lastly, as righteous retribution, an arrow from Brittney lodged itself in the creatures exposed neck. Frank rolled with the shield out of it’s way to let everyone keep firing into it a few more times. It didn’t move at all.

  Someone called out to everyone to cease fire. Frank picked up the axe at his feet and proceeded to chop off the beast’s head. The brutality of Frank’s swings pulled me from my stunned silence. “Joe, did you figure out that ability badge?”

  “Yeah. I went into my menu and it had an exclamation point. I selected it, and it asked me if I would like to permanently add enchant ammo to my ability list. I selected yes, and used it immediately. That shot hit deep. Makes me think most of these creatures have a damage reduction that is negated by magic weapons and ammo.” Those were a lot of words for Joe. He is never quite that chatty.

  “Thanks Joe for the full explanation. At least we know we can gain abilities. Fucking damage reduction. Every damn creature is going to have it then. They are all abyssal or fiendish. At least we know small caliber guns are completely worthless.” Might as well find someone to break down all the small caliber shit and recast into larger caliber. We would lose volume of bullets, but each one would be more effective. That thought could be pushed off for later. Tomorrow-Neal will get to deal with that one. Nora probably has thoughts on it.

  I mentally shook my head. I needed to be in the present. “Joe. Good job so far. Your shooting has been on point. A lot more people would be dead if you weren’t the good shot you are.”

  “ehh, its partly me, its partly the rifle. It is a good scope, and it fires smoothly for such a large caliber rifle.” He smiled and nodded as if that was all the more he was gonna say.

  I was off then. I patted Joe and then Brett on the shoulder. “Keep it up you two. The two of you are life savers. We will get through this.” I got back down to street level to assess the situation up close. In hindsight, the orcs were scarier, due to their ability to soak up gunfire. That is explained by their damage reduction. Having magic weapons and ammo was everything in this war. After that, was having enough large caliber weapons to really punch into these fuckers. “Police and Highway patrol. How are you ammo wise?”

  The respective sergeants came over. Sergeant Stanton spoke first. “We are all down to our last clips. Our guns aren’t all that effective. 9mm guns just barely pierce these things.”

  “We have several pistols that use 45ACP rounds back in the trailer. We also have tons of 9mm ammo. Let’s switch up as many people as we can to better weapons. Ultimately, we need rifles, not handguns.”

  “The station in Hermanville has those. We need to somehow take out whatever is in the Stack Shack.” Sounds like Sergeant Stanton is on board.

  I turned to Officer Mills. “Officer Mills, we need to assault that restaurant. We need to destroy the means they are using to transport creatures to this location. There is probably something magical involved. We take that out and any creatures and we can hopefully link ourselves up with the town. We can create a vital corridor for resistance versus the invasion.”

  “Once we take out the Stack Shack, my orders are clear. I am to escort you to the state capital.” He stood firm. His voice didn’t waver at all.

  “Yeah. I am going to need you to contact your superiors to let them know that I won’t be going to the state capital without my grandfather, who is currently helping organize people in Fenton Missouri.”

  He stood there and blinked for a moment. His silence was deafening, but soon enough he caved, “I can let them know that. I need you to help me not lose my job.”

  “It’s the apocalypse. No one is getting fired. Death should be everyone’s primary concern. I just lost a friend I have known since middle school, and I don’t plan on losing anybody else just yet.” The unspoken part is that I was going to lose more friends, more family, more good people. It isn’t like the demons are just going to remove the assholes and shit-stains from society, nobody is that lucky.

  “By the way, what are the classes and class abilities of you and your men?”

  Stanton replied first, “we all gained a class called Lawful Patrolman. It has this ability where we can mark someone. It says anyone with the law affinity is more effective using skills against them.”

  What the ever-loving-fuck. “Have you been using it?”

  “I haven’t, and I am not sure if the rest of the guys have either.” He stood there, seemingly unaware that skills should include shooting them.

  “Excellent! Moving forward, have one guy hit an enemy with that, then the rest of you open fire. I’ve got the law affinity as well, so it helps me hit them when I shoot.”

  “It said skills. Does that mean firing a weapon as well?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. You may have gone about it wrong up till now, but we’ll use it to our advantage going forward. All we need to do is rotate who uses it each time, so that we stretch out the mana consumption.”

  Officer Mills frowned, “We have an ability to slow creatures or machines, but it requires us to concentrate on the target for the duration of the ability. Because of that, we haven’t used it yet.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Fuckity Fuck. Why is no one using abilities? Why is no one game planning this stuff? “It’s fine. Moving forward we can have you guys rotate who uses it. The person actively using it will rotate to the middle, so they aren’t exposed.” We had both these abilities this whole time. Slowing and marking the big ass demonic wolf would have been hella useful. We really need to coordinate people and their newly system-given abilities.

  “We all need more abilities. So, let’s get another hunter ability and then grab ability from one of those big orc bodies. Depending on what we get we might just tackle the Stack Shack next. Hey Frank, take another scout body and one of those orcs over to Dennis.” I helped the sergeants into the trailer while Frank did what needed done.

  Both Stanton and Mills smiled at me. Stanton asked, “Was all this at the cabin your family has down the road?”

  “Yeah. We grabbed everything that we could.” I handed out several sidearms, copious ammo, and anything else that seemed useful. “How many men can each of you bring with for us to clear this monster den, so to speak?”

  “I’ll bring 3 men including me,” replied Mills

  “I can bring myself and two more, the other two are injured and hobbling,” added Stanton.

  “So, six between the two of you, combine that with myself, Frank, Joe, Billy, and Nora. We are leaving the twins behind. I’m not subjecting them to more danger than necessary. I’ll see if there are any good candidates in the McDonalds to help us. It might be nice if we have folks that have any abilities to buff us for the fight.”

  Stanton looked at me kind of funny. His nose scrunched up, “buffs. What are buffs?”

  “Your class ability is a buff, in a sense; It improves anyone with the law infinity to affect that opponent. Most buffs improve your abilities. The enchanted ammo ability that we gave Joe is an example of one. It makes several bullets magical. We learned right away that such an enchantment negates the special durability of all these creatures. In short, it improves his damage potential against them significantly.”

  “That all sounds a bit much like a video game,” replied Stanton.

  “To be fair, it is very much like a video game. However, this is our new reality, whether we like it or not. Might as well work hard to exploit every advantage we can against these creatures. They are certainly using their advantages against us.”

  “Does this mean we are in a video game, or some sick simulation? Have our lives become someone’s fever dream?” Stanton looked genuinely distraught at this moment.

  “Personally, no I don’t think that is the case. I imagine things a far more complex than that. However, for the moment. Let’s do what we need to do to get through today. Those questions are for people that don’t need to be worried about survival in a world gone mad. We’ll leave it up to those worry free people.”

  Once we got the trailer closed up, we rejoined the officers back at our makeshift barricade. “What abilities did you get out of those two creatures?”

  Dennis responded, “you know, I would like to be set free from these damn cuffs. However, you are in luck as we got an ability token that is both strength as well as martial. We also got another hunter ability. But it feels different than the last one.”

  “Excellent! Frank. Take the strength one and I will take the hunter one into Nora. Then we are down to Billy needing an ability.” Then we need to help get our police entourage abilities was my next thought. We need more people with the ability to steal powers from the dead. Sooner or later, we need to figure out how to simply create abilities within a given tier all on our own. I have no clue how or when we figure that out. That has to be a down the road problem.

  I pushed the future problems out of my mind as I went into the McDonalds. The Interior was large, but all the people inside made it feel smaller. I headed further in to find Billy and Nora, only to run into the unmistakable signs of an argument.

  “I will not allow you two to run around telling people to access the Devil’s machinations. That system is evil.” The words came from a somewhat out of shape looking middle aged man. He wasn’t fat, but he certainly wasn’t fit. “Stop doing the Devil’s work.” He had his holstered gun showing on his right hip. He was standing over Billy, who was nursing a blow to his head.

  Nora was just behind Billy. She was had her fists balled up. The look on his face was unmistakable: she was livid. “There is so much wrong with what you said. The system has nothing to do with the Devil. We also need, and I can’t stress this enough, use the system to our advantage. If we don’t, then humanity’s days are numbered.”

  His anger was rising, spittle forming at the corners of his lips. “Of course, a servant of Satan would say that. This is all just to lull us into using the Devil’s system. I won’t let you force or trick these people down the Devil’s path.”

  None of this made sense to me. The system didn’t seem to be divinely or profanely driven. It didn’t appear to be the product of a truly higher power, merely supernatural ones. They were powerful forces that would create something as powerful as the system, there were no references to God or the Devil. I still had one use of assess left, since I never bothered on the shorter dog men, or the giant wolf creature. Neither felt like an essential use. Maybe this was the best use. I concentrated on the man for just long enough to get my assess to complete. I smiled, a filthy smirk of a smile. This was poetic justice.

  I quickly texted Frank to bring one of the cops with him from outside. I wasn’t in the spotlight yet, but it wouldn’t be long now. Somehow, I caught the attention of Nora. She looked sideways at me. “Neal. Please help with this guy. He has gone off the deep end.”

  “Sure thing, Nora.” I kept my facing towards this man causing such problems. There seemed to be several people behind him that looked to be on his side. “Sir, my name is Neal. What’s your name?”

  “Don. Why do you want to know? I don’t know you. You are in league with this servant of Satan.” He got louder at the end. Several people perked up behind him, as if they were starting to get emboldened to resist Neal’s goal of organizing humanity against the invasion in a productive way. This way led to madness. Neal glanced back at the entrance. Frank and a police officer had just entered. Go time.

  “Don. You see, I don’t think the issue about the Devil. You have a deeper and more immediate problem. You don’t like the system called you out. It properly identified you for what you really are.”

  The meaning was not lost on Don. He realized immediately that this was going to be bad. He pulled his gun on me. “The system lies to us. It spreads falsehoods. Lying is the work of Satan.”

  “You aren’t being honest with everyone.” Frank and the officer came into my peripheral vision. Frank must have ditched the shield to come inside. However, he had his right hand at his side resting on his holster. The officer was right behind him doing the same. “You just don’t want everyone to know the class you received. You protested a bit too hard. You didn’t know I have an ability called assess. It tells me the class you have.”

  The look of horror on his face told me and everyone else that there was a big problem. Don pulled the trigger and shot at me before I could react. The shot took me in the vest, absorbing the shot. I was knocked to the ground. My chest hurt like I had been punched by a bag of rocks. The crowd scattered away from Don and me. I wanted to pass the fuck out, but no rest for doomed.

  The officer and Frank wasted no time both pulling guns on Don. The officer the spoke up in this highly charged situation. “Don is it. You need to put the gun down. You just shot a civilian. If your lucky, the vest absorbed the impact, and he is just going to have a big fucking bruise. If you missed the vest and he dies here, that is murder.”

  I interrupted. “I’m alive. Don is angry because his class is pedophile rapist.” The mood and atmosphere of the room immediately shifted. Frank and the officer both stiffened the focus of their eyes and their guns on Don. The crowd backed further from him. There were several loud gasps throughout the room.

  “Lies! These are the foul words of a deceiver!” Unfortunately, he had lost the room.

  I slowly, very slowly got off my back. My chest and my back hurt. This was the first time I had been hit with a bullet, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Once I had gotten myself up to a sitting position I could see the new emotion on his face: fear. His gun arm was lowering to the ground.

  Suddenly he crumpled to the ground, struck from behind. A teenage boy that was a reflection of a much younger Don was holding a baseball bat. “You Asshole! You told me Dana lied. You said she had tried to seduce you. Asshole!” As if to add insult to injury, he spat on his father’s backside. The teenager then dropped the bat and held his hands up in surrender. The officer moved forward like to put the cuffs on the teen.

  “Officer, Stop! Don’t put the cuffs on the teenager. Put the dad in cuffs. There are probably twenty people in this place below the age of eighteen. He is a far greater danger to everyone than the kid that smacked his dad for raping a girl friend of his.” The officer stopped and looked at me. He raised a single eyebrow as if he was uncertain or questioning my logic. Finally, after what seemed forever, but was only a half a dozen seconds, he redirected himself to the prone Don. With Don being face first and barely audible groan it was easy for the officer to put him in cuffs.

  “You sure you don’t want me to arrest the kid for assault?”

  “Yeah, Don will never be pressing charges on his son. I think we can impress the importance of that into Don at some point.” The officer nodded and flashed a mean smirk back towards me as he hauled Don up by his cuffed hands. The wrenching of his muscles was drowned out by his whimpered cries of pain. Yeah, that clearly wasn’t procedure in getting a suspect up off the ground. Fortunately, the inside of the fast food place returned to its apocalyptic normalcy in rejection of Don’s dangerous rhetoric. He poisoned that well with his toxic class assignment. All I did was enlighten people.

  Do you want to see more under the hood details like classes, abilities, and similar of the other characters introduced so far?